The Journey of an Outstanding Scientific Mind: Prof Hiroshi Maeda (1938–2021)

In the mid-70s of the last century, Prof [...]

Bamboos: From Bioresource to Sustainable Materials and Chemicals

Nature is a master engineer. From the bones of the tiniest bird to the sophisticated bioproduction of a spider’s web, the works of nature are an enigma to the scientific mind. In the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics, studying, understanding, and harnessing the intricacies of nature’s designs for the benefit of mankind is the bedrock of science and technology. One such exceptionally engineered natural material is the bamboo plant. This ancient vegetation has, over dozens of generations, reinvented itself as a legendary, resilient, ubiquitous, and impressive bioresource that is not just sustainable, but also ecologically and cheaply cultivatable, and invaluable for soil erosion control, while holding the enormous potential to be transmuted into various useful chemicals and materials. With the increasing concerns and obligations in rethinking the future of the environment, sequestration of carbon dioxide, reduction in timber usage, and preservation of already depleted non-renewable resources, it has become vital for environmentalists, governments, scientists, and other stakeholders to identify alternatives to fossil-based chemicals and their derivable materials that are sustainable without compromising efficiency. By coalescing engineering-, chemical-, and materials science-based approaches, including results from over 100 reports, we demonstrate that the bamboo plant presents enormous opportunities for sustainable chemicals and materials. In addition, we highlight the current challenges involving the optimization of bamboo-based technologies and provide recommendations for future studies.

Reading Heidegger against the Grain: Hans Jonas on Existentialism, Gnosticism, and Modern Science

This article argues that the link Hans Jonas drew between Martin Heidegger's philosophy and Gnosticism cannot be properly understood without taking into consideration his philosophical interpretation of modern science. It claims that Jonas saw Heideggerian existentialism not as a modern instantiation of Gnosticism but as a specific experiential reaction to the new cosmological outlook that emerged from the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, which negated the conceptual world that made Gnosticism possible. Jonas's interpretation is “against the grain”: by claiming that Heidegger's thought is a product of the reduction of nature to measurable, manipulable, and calculable extension governing the modern scientific mind, Jonas attributed to Heidegger the very flaws Heidegger critiqued in others. It is further claimed that Jonas's original contribution to Heidegger's reception history is not in proposing the link to Gnosticism but in reading him as the philosophical outcome of the instrumental reasoning of modern science.

THE CONCEPT «BRAIN-PSYCHE-(MIND/CONSCIOUSNESS...)» AND THE QUESTION OF HYPERTHEORY OF THE CONCEPT

In the context of research on problematization of human, the aspect of the human essence in a human is emphasized and the need to develop a hyper-level theory of the concept of «brain-psyche-(mind/consciousness...)» as a natural phenomenon in human life is proposed. We consider this phenomenon and, therefore, the concept, as non-linear macro-/hyperintegrity (holism). The basis for such an idea — the idea of hypertheory of the concept of «brain-psyche-(mind/consciousness...)» — is that the brain and the psyche, being components of the concept , are considered and investigated by specialists, including us, as an environment/system of synergistic order in whose behavior self-organization, chaos and dissipation play a controlling role. The brain and the psyche, included in the concept, are non-linear by definition. The fact that the issues of integrity are currently in the focus of research attention is due to transdisciplinarity as a new, deeper level of integration, which implies not only convergent penetration of scientific methods and disciplines but also the creation of such cognitive situations in which the scientific mind is forced to make the transition to practical life in search of integrity. In addition, it becomes relevant to search for theoretical-methodological research tools adequate to phenomena of this class for their description as nonlinear integralities of a given level of complexity. It is understood that the human brain and mind, in the unity of their activities throughout human life, express some indivisible unity. One of such tools is the conceptual model (philosophical category) «the Whole in the Whole», which includes integrity, nonlinearity and complexity, making it possible to consider the presented macro-/hyperintegrity in an integral unity. The article analyzes one of the aspects of the concept of «brain-psyche-(mind/consciousness...)» related to chaotization, which is inevitable in its non-linear behavior and which shows that both brain and psyche are continuously changing entities: from structure and system to the manifestation of the quality of environment and dynamic chaos. Their non-equilibrium and extreme non-equilibrium are prerequisites for their survival.

The invention of reality

The subject of the article is the process of forming ideas about the world as reality, which is most accurately described by the word “invention”. The author, relying on classical texts in this respect (E. Husserl, M. Heidegger) and modern studies (A. Makushinsky, J.-F. Kurtin) substantiates the position according to which the idea of reality is not a cultural invariant. The notion that reality has always existed, and thanks to scientific reason has been most adequately reflected, understood and described, is a significant modernization. This has been evidenced by both the etymology of the concepts of “reality” and “reality”, which first appeared only in scholasticism (D. Scotus, M. Eckhart), and the process of their content filling, which is inextricably linked with the formation of scientific rationality. The article shows that both the scientific mind and the integral image of the world created by it, which we call reality, genetically date back to the Christian value-semantic universe. Initially, it was within the framework of the discourse of natural theology that the image of the autonomous world has been conceptualized, developing according to the universal principles established by God. In the first scientific programs (R. Descartes, G. Galilei, I. Newton), these ideas were continued, as a result of which the world began to be understood as an immanent reality that is subject to the laws of nature. The new ontological beliefs received the ultimate philosophical foundation in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, to whom the phenomenal world exhausts the reality available to man. Accordingly, the world turns into a one-dimensional detranscendentalized reality. This methodological approach allows the author to make the following conclusions: 1) the image of world “reality” is a rather modern “invention”, which was unknown in previous eras; 2) at the same time, it is genetically connected with the Christian semantic universe, outside of which it could not appear; 3) the world in it is understood as a one-dimensional immanent reality.

Considerações sobre “A Formação do Espírito Científico” para o Século XXI | Considerations on "The Formation of the Scientific Mind" for the 21st Century

No final da segunda década do século XXI, o “espí­rito científico” se vê mais uma vez atacado por uma onda anticientificista global com interferências especialmente graves no Brasil. Esse contexto prova a sobrevivência e a sedução contínua de concepções pré-científicas no imaginário contemporâneo. Torna-se novamente necessário revisitar os esforços de revisão dos fundamentos da ciência empreendi­dos pelo filósofo francês Gaston Bachelard (1884- 1962) no final dos anos 1930, quando a Europa vivenciava um período sombrio de guerras e apolo­gia ao obscurantismo, à violência, à intolerância e ao extermínio. Reconhecer e defender os fundamentos da “formação do espírito científico” em tempos tão adversos certamente exige a reiteração dos valores históricos do diálogo, da experiência sensível, da experimentação criteriosa, do compartilhamento de protocolos, da exposição pública à crítica e do debate. Entretanto, uma “psicanálise do conhe­cimento objetivo” deve ir além e promover uma investigação epistemológica incisiva que reconheça falseamentos, distorções e obstáculos à formação de um novo espírito científico. Essa “psicanálise” poderia contribuir para revigorar e reposicionar os entendimentos e as práticas científicas em uma nova condição dialética, crítica e consciente da mobilidade das imagens e das dinâmicas do imaginário que não atuam em outro âmbito senão naquele da política, da estética e da ética.